Bradley Dangles Bait For Europe Flights

Bradley International Airport, for the first time, is offering incentives worth as much as $500,000 to any airline that opens regular trans-Atlantic passenger service.

Similar incentives are also available for airlines opening new flights from Bradley to Latin America or the Caribbean, or nonstop flights to California, Alaska, Hawaii or 10 other far Western states.

State officials say they are negotiating with more than one airline that could qualify for the incentives, which were approved Monday by a special meeting of the airport's board of directors.

Kiran Jain, the airport's director of marketing and route development, said she is talking with more than one airline interested in offering long-haul domestic flights from Bradley. She could not say when an agreement might be reached.

She said no proposal for flights to Europe is before her, although the new program of cash incentives and fee waivers will strengthen her hand in seeking one.

The incentive plan would grant a qualifying airline reduced landing fees and gate charges, plus a waiver of arrival fees for international travelers. It offers as much as $200,000 in marketing assistance to draw passengers to the new flights.

Board chairman L. Scott Frantz said a major impetus for the incentive program, which is patterned after those used successfully at several other midsize U.S. airports, is to bolster the airport's longstanding effort to initiate trans-Atlantic air service.

Bradley's international flights currently are limited to scheduled service to Canada, along with charter flights to Mexico and the Caribbean.

``First and foremost, the board and the Department of Transportation feels a responsibility to the region to make certain the air service is there to meet the needs travelers have,'' including overseas flights, Frantz said.

``The incentive program takes a baby step toward that.''

Frantz said the board, created four years ago to promote development of the airport, has been ``trying to piece together a formal [incentive] program for quite some time.''

He said $1 million to create the ``air service development fund'' will be transferred from the Bradley Enterprise Fund, a special fund that receives airport revenue and covers expenditures.

In February, he and Jain told a meeting of the MetroHartford Alliance that Connecticut has ``a strong business case'' for opening service to a European hub such as London, Amsterdam or Paris, but an airline almost surely would require financial support from the state and local corporations.

They cited a successful effort by Portland, Ore., which got the German airline Lufthansa to open daily air service to Frankfurt by offering a total of $3.7 million in fee and tax waivers and marketing assistance. Added to that was $10.8 million in travel guarantees from 27 corporations promising to buy a certain number of tickets annually.

Jain said Bradley's program is modeled after more modest incentives offered at midsize airports such as those in Akron and Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Myers and Tallahassee, Fla.

``No matter what, the plan [for new service] has to make business sense, but these incentives are like the icing on the cake,'' she said.

Board member Michael Long said having as much as $500,000 to offer could help clinch a deal for overseas flights, particularly if the airline was considering another airport with similar incentives. ``We've got to compete with what's out there in the world,'' he said.

John Shulansky of West Hartford, who has been trying for more than four years to open a locally owned airline connecting Bradley to Stansted Airport near London, said that with two planes flying seven days a week the incentive plan would offer him almost $1,100 a day.

There also could be as much as $100,000 in marketing assistance.

``That helps, but it's not the make-or-break'' consideration, Shulansky said.

``Your service has to make economic sense apart from the marketing incentive. It's not that much money, but providing this incentive is essential to the growth of the airport.''